Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong

Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong

Fortune Magazine, in conjunction with Kaiser Health News, published an article on March 18, 2019. It’s entitled: “Death by 1,000 Clicks: Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong”. Our readers should take a look at this frightening article on some of the routine difficulties with EHR’s. And take special note of the lesser-known potential errors that are being discovered.

Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong

The article describes many issues. For example,

Entries by clinicians for lab tests that never pass through to the lab

Orders for medications that don’t display warnings about interactions

Progress notes that disappear

Unintended merging of data among different patient records

Have we replaced manual errors and lack of information access with its electronic double?

In fact, we sought to eliminate hand writing errors and find ways to share patient information across providers. But, are electronic health records an entirely new source of error? Plus, is the lack of interoperability a substitute for the locked file cabinet?

Furthermore, this article is so concerning that we encourage our readers to share it with physician and nursing leaders, IT staff, and ancillary department heads. What’s more, include frank internal discussions about your hospitals past experiences on this issue. In addition, the Federal government’s financial incentives, software vendors, hospitals, and physicians don’t escape unscathed in this article. You can find the article online here.

Lastly, would you like to learn more about the concept of interoperability? A colleague and friend of ours, Michael Mytych, founder of Health Information Consulting, LLC based in Menomonee Falls, WI, wrote a compelling blog piece on this topic that you can access here. Further, Michael’s blog provides a link to new CMS proposals on interoperability that were just published in February.